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Waaaaay back in 1979, Parker Brothers took a chance on a new property/invention and decided to break away from just making board games and dip their toe into boys toys and action figures. That venture was ROM: The Space Knight.

Marvel Comics also picked up the property for a 75 issue run written by Bill Mantlow (who was also writing the Micronauts comic, in addition to some other projects such as Hulk and Alpha Flight). Mattel didn’t have much of a back story for Rom, outside of him being a cyborg, so Marvell had a pretty clean slate to work with.
The primary villains in the Rom comic were the Dire Wraiths. The wikipedida entry says: " The Dire Wraiths are a fictional extraterrestrial race that is part of the Marvel Comics Universe. They were the main opponents of Rom and his fellow Spaceknights, although they have also appeared in a few other Marvel comic books.

The Wraiths are an offshoot of the Skrulls from the Andromeda Galaxy.
Like the Skrulls, the Wraiths are shape-shifters, able to take the forms of other creatures. Their basic appearance, however, is entirely different. The Wraiths were originally depicted as amorphous, cloudy, vaguely humanoid-shaped beings. However, it was eventually revealed that was a transitional form used for shape-shifting. Their true solid form had obese, reddish bodies with large, pupil-less eyes, small beaks, ‘hands’ that resemble small pincers and tentacles; clawed feet, and thick tails."

There was a Dire Wraith figure sculpted for Toy Biz that has never seen release. I believe only a small picture of white test shot has ever surfaced in the pages of Toy Fare. This figure was sculpted by Clayburn Moore as his only work for Toy Biz. I was to be a 6" scale figure as part of a new Silver Surfer line. Meegan was also part of that assortment (tentatively to be called "Marvel’s Weirdest Aliens") and that figure did see release. But the Dire Wraith was lost to time… until Marvel and Toy Biz moved offices nearly a year ago and the prototype was found. Marvel Legends line manager Jesse Falcon passed it onto Toy Biz prototype painter Eddie Wires. Eddie painted it up… and now here is your first look at the fully painted prototype of a lost figure….

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About Me:

Julius Marx was know the world over for 10 years as the title character in the long running TV cop-on-the-edge show “Hockuly!” Now he writes about and takes pictures of toys and attempts to put all his weird knowledge to work for him. He has been collecting toys his entire life.